About the Series
Enthusiasts for military historical fiction are almost spoiled for choice for novels set in the Napoleonic era. C. S. Forester set the mark high with his Hornblower series, with Patrick O’Brian rising to that challenge with his brilliant Jack Aubrey novels. Bernard Cornwell’s Creation, Richard Sharpe continues to campaign on land, while Allan Mallinson’s cavalry Captain Matthew Hervey gallops in support.
When read in chronological order, the novels in all of these excellent series follow the career of their hero through the events and campaigns of the turbulent periods they inhabit. Their success in large part is down to painstaking research by their authors, and how they use the information they win from primary sources and the work of historians. They strike the balance between providing enough background fact to satisfy the expert on that era, without boring the general reader looking for a satisfying story peopled by believable characters. Used with the skill employed by any of these authors, the small details of daily life in the period, or military equipment used, help set the scene and bring the story to life.
Through the work of these authors many of us now have some real feeling for what life would have been like on a ship of the line in Nelson’s navy, or to have foot slogged through the Peninsular Campaign, at the same time being richly entertained by the stories told so well. But what about the countless aviation enthusiasts who have read everything they can lay their hands on about the birth of military aviation in the Great War, but still wait for a flying Hornblower or Sharpe?
Until now that is. When American publisher, Lucky Press, presented Chris Davey’s first novel, The Aviator’s Apprentice, in 2000 it marked the beginning of a series set to run and run. Will Turner is a hero for aviation, a pioneer caught up in events. He is an engineer forced to become a soldier as his adopted country is dragged into the First World War. An innocent abroad in the first novel in the series, he is fighting for his life in Turner’s Flight. By the time the third novel, Turner’s Defense, concludes he has met and overcome the biggest challenge yet presented to those defending the United Kingdom.
With a British author, an Anglo American hero, and stories set largely in England and France, Lucky Press thought it high time that readers in the UK should be given the chance to enjoy these excellent novels without having to order them from the USA where they have been on sale for the past decade. Go to Amazon.com to read the five star reviews submitted by actual readers, not the author or publisher which is often the case. The series will be officially launched at the Shuttleworth Collection before the 2010 flying season starts, but you can buy now from Slipstream Books. We have been given the task of processing your order and getting the books to you in good condition.
Readers in the UK and Ireland may notice that the books are edited in the American style. We make no apology for this. Our publisher, Lucky Press, an independent based in Ohio, was prepared to publish the first book in the series, "The Aviator’s Apprentice" when no British publishing house showed interest on the grounds that they believed there was no interest in aviation based fiction! Fortunately thousands of American readers have already proved them wrong. Lucky Press have gone from strength to strength and are now enjoying the sales that only a series can generate. The fourth book in the series is under development and we are confident that Will Turner will be flying well into the future.
In the short term the series is only available through Slipstream Books in the UK, but you will increasingly find the series for sale through independent book retailers in the UK, and Museum book shops. It is the policy of Lucky Press, an independent company, to support the small retailer and the work of aviation museums.
We are confident you will love the series. You can read the novels in any order, but try to read them all this year, because you will be sure to want "Turner’s Leave" when that is published in 2011.